The story started at 6:30 this morning on my way to the golf course, about a 20 mile drive on the turnpike from my house.

Just before I was getting on the xway I was coming up on a light. It was green. Some idiot turns right on red and I moved over a lane. Except the dumb az makes a wide turn into the center lane. That pissed me off a bit more then just the initial shake you head and go onward and ignor the stupidity of the other driver. Sooooooo, I goosed the car, abruptly turned the car and went around him to the left and got on the xway. This is usually my 100 mph plus trek for 15-17 miles

About 7 or 8 miles I felt a chug in the car. A minute later I see the battery light come on. I turned all the electrical components off.....radio, ac, radar dectector and the fan. A couple minutes later I see the the temperature is spiked. I am 5 miles from golf course................... I turn the heat on full blast to try and keep the temp down.

I got off the xway and made it to the course. Tough making a turn with no power steering.

I opened the hood and the belt was off. WTF. The engine was a bit on the hot side to say the least.

And My first question was?

Do I golf now? Mess with SRT now or later or vice versa........... I went golfing. Priorties were straight.

I called AMX Jim,who live a couple miles away and my drag racing compadre, at 8:30am to see if he would be available at noon to help me put the belt on. I apologized for waking him up on Sunday morning so early. But, I was on the 4th hole by then, but thinking about my injured disabled baby.

I finished the round........shot 78.

Jim called me and he met me at the course at 12:30. We began the diagnosis and putting the belt back on. Hmmmmm, a problem! One of the pulley's is missing. And you ask! Which pulley? One of the 3 that was replaced with the 181 pulley group and it wasn't the water pump pulley or the ...crank pulley.... It is the one below the supercharger. Where did it go ................ Well, as luck would have it, there it was laying on the pan below the engine and the bolt was with it as though someone had just left it there after taking it off the engine. Luckily the belt was intact.

Now what............... the bolt had loosened itself out............. Why? The bearing had siezed.........As luck would have it I called my daughter to look for the bearing that LET had sent me several months ago. There it was 20 miles away. Ashley brought it up to Jim and I.

In the meantime Jim popped out he old bearing using a small socket he had brought with a few other tools. We gently got the bolt back in as the external treads were a wee bit ragged to test the treads.

It took Ashley about 40 minutes to get there with a hammer and a bigger socket to use as a press. We used the old bearing to set on the new one as not to damage the new one as we hammered it in place with a socket and hammer on the cement. Since we were in the parking lot of the golf course a press machine wasn't available. This was by the seat of your pants mechanics. The old fashion way........

We put the belt back on. We started the car and .... and......

The moral of the story:

Friends are hard to come by and not many people would come to your rescue when you have a problem unless you are paying them a ton of money.

I could not have done this with the help of Jim Barnes, Mr AMX and a fellow SRT owner.

THANK YOU SIR.

How lucky can you get.
1. The belt was fine.
2.The pulley was in the floor pan
3. The bolt was there still in the pulley
4. The treads were not stripped
5. I had the bearing at the house
6. Ashley was able to find the bearing and bring it to me
7. Jim was available
8. Jim was available
9 No other damage............................. Life is good
10. That the engine didn't blow up

 

Nice round of 78....

oh good job on the pulley fix...with thee golf spikes on i hope...just for a little situational humor.

..on a side note..
you should add to the moral of the story 10) i should have replced the idler pulley bearings when they were sent to me...

hahaha...

glad to hear everything worked out...now if only i can go out and shoot a 78...

 

My buddy is a member of some Goldwing club and they have a directory of all of the club members just for occasions like this. Imagine you are traveling on I-10 in Arizona say just east of Tucson and your car stalls. Who you gonna call, AAA or a somewhat Crossfire knowledgeable Crossfire buddy?

I would help a forum member in a minute if they were stranded within my area.

Now all we need is a list!

 

That is a great idea! It will have to be State by State. I was very fortunate that we were able to get the bearing in place.

As to why I didn't replace the bearing when I recieved it in the mail.....

1. If its not broke, don't fix it. I got 15,000 miles off that bearing after the 181 was installed.

2. When I got the bearing, I wasn't sure where it went. duh on my part.

3. Yes I will be replacing the bearing in Ashley's SRT.

 

Glad i could help,,I had, after strighten out the threads installed the pulley and then tried to spin it almost forgot my mechanics there,, but it comes back quickly. this is when we found it was seized . we had to remove the snap ring with a pair of wire cutter pliers and small screw driver, (we had none of the correct tools,) and then knock the bearing out , we didn't have even have a hammer. We used pliers and a socket to knock out the bearing,, when Randy"s daugther arrived with a hammer , installing the bearing with useing the old bearing to line up and hammer on ,,we got it in ,, now for the snap ring after a few tries, randy found a small, i mean small pair of needle nose pliers they worked. I tried the bolt first and already fixed the thds. Then we installed the pulley then the belt,, good thing we had my car there so we could see how the belt goes, got every thing back to normal, car runs, belt still on,, i told randy to retorque that bolt once he got home, all this was done in two hours. jim

 

Great story guys. Oh, and great round!

 

Glad everything worked out for you! Question, did you not get the hundred fingernails scrapping a black board sound from those bearings seizing ~~quivering from the thought~~?

 

Funny how our car's don't have a belt routing diagram. As many times that I have had belts off I always seem to forget the belt path.

---------------------------------------------------

Now. Who's gonna start the "CROSS" list?

Crossfire
Repair
Or
Support
Squad

Get it? It's a RED Cross as in assistance! Ok I'll get back to work!

 

My head hurts now because of that...the minute I read it I facepalmed...doh!.

 

Well NO I couldn't hear anything. Maybe the needswing CAI sounds simular. LOL. Also, I was on the turnpike cruising 80-90 mph and I have a roadster. The db it probably 120 at that speed.

The bearing didn't fry and I think the bolt loosened itself as the bearing was in the process of seizing or seized as the bolt holding the pulley was coming out of the engine.

Anyways I am still shaking my head thinking how lucky I was.

PS Jim got to Grand Palms Golf course at around noon and was home by 1:30. So it really only took a little over an hour to fix everything and it took Ashley 45 minutes to bring up the bearing to us.

 

That's awesome! You gotta love a story like that. You're one lucky guy. In fact, I think you used up all of your available luck for a while. So don't place any bets, or take any chances for a while!

 

Randy, great story, glad you got it back on the road with a little help from a friend. Did you buy him a lottery ticket?

 

LMAO. Yes, I totally, completely agree. I was very lucky.

I stopped by the dealer this afternoon to check on Ashley's SRT. The supercharger came in, but the new altenator that they were also waiting for had a bad bearing (go figure a bad bearing) in it so the mechanic ordered another one that will be in Tuesday from Atlanta. She misses her xf and I won't let her drive mine. Why? It is MINE.

 

let me be the first to offer! steve rivet aka 32krazy! nashville tn area 615 579 7997
if anyone headed to the dragon runs into trouble dont hesititate to call!!

 

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